Many Illegal Immigrants that Get Deported Find Their Way Back to the United States Reports Miami Immigration Lawyer

Miami, FL (Law Firm Newswire) January 18, 2012 – Immigrants with criminal records seem to make a habit of coming back to the U.S. While it may not happen often, it happens enough to be a concern.

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out there is nothing in place to improve the immigration system, and despite all the promises since Obama was elected, nothing has been done. Period. Will it happen? Who knows? And, in the meantime, there is the issue of illegal immigrants with criminal records making repeat appearances in the U.S. – enough so that they will head to prison, not back home,” said Larry S. Rifkin, managing partner at Rikfin & Fox-Isicoff, an immigration law firm with Miami immigration lawyers and Orlando immigration lawyers.

Consider the case of one illegal immigrant who was booted out of the U.S. not once, but three times. The first time was in 1994 when he was 12-years-old, then once more in 1995 and again in 2006. “He came back and this time, stole a Social Security number and applied for unemployment benefits,” Rifkin recounted. “He was eventually caught and busted after managing to rake in at least $4,000 in benefits. His stay in federal prison is six and a half years.”

Statistics show that just about one in five illegal immigrants have been in trouble with the law, which should come as no surprise as there are very few ways to move lawfully to the U.S. People simply get tired of waiting on lists that go on forever to get a visa and take action instead. Whether it is legal or illegal, they will get to the U.S. one way or another if they want that badly enough.

“While the immigration laws seem to mean well, the whole system is so broken that it is hard to know where to start to fix it. Most of the laws do not even do what they were intended to do when they were first put into place. Of course, this may well be the reason why the White House hasn’t had much luck fixing the system either, but they don’t have to work with it like immigration lawyers do; they just make it up as they go, and therein lies the big flaw,” added Rifkin.

On one hand the government says they want to fix the system and find a way to make illegal immigrants legal. On the other hand they deport more than 396,000 people last year, and roughly 20 percent of them had been booted out at least once before. Many of them also had to leave their children in foster homes that American taxpayers fund through the social services system.

“So what does the immigration system do about the bad apples that keep returning? Send them back? Yes. Send them back again? Yes. And where does it end? If immigration reform ever does get addressed and passed, one would certainly hope situations like this one would have a better outcome than federal prison at our expense,” said Rifkin.